AOL to Stop Sending Report Cards

AOL says: "We are no longer sending report cards. If you have a complaint feedback loop, make sure you are monitoring your spam complaints and not relying on the report card to alert you to complaint issues."

What were report cards? They were emailed notices that AOL would give senders who had complaint rates in excess of AOL's allowed threshold. In the past that threshold was .1%, and lately, the report cards would only trigger at .3% and above. I didn't find them useless, personally, but most ESPs already have more sophisticated data at their fingertips, that helped dive into more detail than the AOL report card emails provided. Most smart senders probably were not relying on the report cards to notify them of a potential problem.

Don't assume that this means AOL isn't still watching the statistics to determine who's been naughty and who's been nice. This is by no means a free pass for senders to allow spam complaints percentages to rise. It's actually very likely they're going to continue to block bad senders as warranted. So likely, I'd be happy to bet any amount of money on that.

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